Darwin Awards: Man rails against seatbelts, then killed in survivable rollover.

Amen! I get furious when I see children crawling around the inside of a car! It also is pointless to insist your child wear seatbelts, etc., but not wear them yourself. The message that sends is that wearing seatbelts of for kids, but not adults, so they stop wearing them when they start driving. I wish everyone could see the bodies of those ejected from vehicles! I once had to collect a seatbelt-less dork's remains with a *shovel*

And before anyone starts that, "Sometimes the seatbelt causes the death or injury" shit, let me tell you, your chances of finding yourself in that situation are astronomical!

Natalie, pro-seatbelt and anti-smoking Nazi

I never used to wear seatbelts until I had an accident. For some reason, I was driving along and thought 'I should put my seatbelt on'. Less than

1 mile ahead, I entered a tunnel and rear-ended a car that had been abandoned there after running out of gas. The impact knocked the engine and tranny right out from under my brand new pickup. The bed shifted 2" forward on the frame and I had to crawl out of the window because the doors were wedged shut. My shoulder harness & seatbelt worked flawlessly and the only thing I had was a headache from stopping so damn fast.

Angles do really exist as far as I'm concerned.

Cheers, - Jeff G

One almost feels sorry for the knucklhead. You can just imagine what philosophy he was brought up with. Big ol' bad intrusive government, indeed.

Problem is, most laws governing personal behavior (and by no means all) came about after years or decades injuries, pain, suffering and death. Don't want to wear a helmet on a motorcycle or bicycle, then have tattoed on you forhead "No expensive emergency medical intervention allowed".

Maybe you wife and kids become destitute because you objected to the "gubmimt" telling you to wear you safety belt. Should the rest of us be then burdened with their care? Are we going to have to pay for your long term medical care because you're a gorked out vegetable? Should the rest of us pay for increased insurance costs because you insurance company has to keep you alive?

No man is an island, but you wish you could send a few there.

You know Toyota makes good trucks when all you have to talk about is seat belts.

I few weeks ago I owned a Z71 and you go to their group site and you saw things written like: How do you fix? Something is knocking. Where is my oil going? Why did GM do this? etc.....

You said it. Strange as it may seem, just because he was killed does NOT mean that his position was wrong. In fact, his position, that government should not mandate seatbelts (at least, for adults) was completely correct.

Everyone SHOULD have the right to make their own decisions. That's practically the definition of freedom. That's a completely different issue from whether any given decision is stupid or not.

Try to outlaw all stupid decisions, and you'll have two major problems:

1) Who gets to decide what is a stupid decision? 2) Enforcement

Regardless os how you answer, your answers will not lead to (or preserve) a free society. Re: the seatbelt thing: It's not just the law, it's a good idea.

One other point I forgot to mention:

One cannot have freedom without personal responsibility. The corollary to that is, you cannot remove personal responsibility without taking away freedom.

Think about it.

- Michael

I like the way you think, Michael. In the military community, if a person doesn't want to wear a seatbelt or helmet where law requires it, the military does NOT have to pay for their medical care, and if they die, they don't have to pay for their life insurance either. They might opt to, if the serviceperson is lucky enough. If a person's had an alcohol related accident, it's also up to a review board whether they'll pay for any medical or final expenses. Not only that, but they can be charged (if they survive) with damage to government property, disobeying a lawful order, in addition to whatever laws they've broken.

If only it were that easy to deal with civilian stupidity.

On Sat, 15 Jan 2005 00:39:50 GMT, "Pookerz" found these unused words floating about:

Start voting IN those who are less concerned with PC and more concerned with 'personal responsibility' !

with all this stuff about the drivers rights to not wear their seat belt and their right to get seriously injured in the unlikely event of an accident what about a thought for the people that have to attend these accidents how this affects them and their families because they have to scrape them off the roads and cars. Joe

Natalie, pro-seatbelt and anti-smoking Nazi, I agree. Children learn more from us by what we do than by what we say. You can preach all day long but whatever example you set for children is what they will mimic. I also see adults wearing a seat belt but the children aren't, I guess because they aren't in charge of their children enough to make them obey. (end of soap-box :-) ) davidj92

Think that's some traffic? You ought to visit the Dodge and Ford truck groups. :-) davidj92

Oh, don't get me started on *that*!

I also hate seeing either dogs or people in a truck without any restraints. If that truck hits something, they're going to be thrown to their deaths. And even when people put a leash on the dog, he could be hanged after being thrown out of the truck.

Stupid people bother me

Natalie, *not* a PETArd, but does care about animals